Christian author book marketing

If you searched for “crisis in publishing,” you could spend the rest of your life, quite unhappily I might add, reading predictions of publishing’s impending demise. I don’t have anything at stake with the big New York City publishing scene, but I do know a thing or two about Christian publishing.

Perhaps the word “crisis” goes too far. The more measured, less “link-bait-inclined” headline I’ve chosen is “challenges” (My thanks to the three of you who persevered to click through.) Mind you, these are some big challenges. The challenges are especially pressing for authors who aren’t pastors of mega-churches or who can’t afford a $250,000 marketing campaign to make a series of purchases that land their books on the New York Times bestseller list.

Yes, there are more Christian authors than that one former pastor who have done the latter.

Adding to the urgency of these challenges, I’ve seen quite a few of my talented friends involved in Christian publishing take big steps back either to rest or to reevaluate what they’re doing. Some have bowed out, some have made big changes to their goals and daily practices. Some are soldiering on in Christian publishing while harboring some big misgivings—hardly believing that others aren’t putting up more red flags.

From what I know about editors and publicists in the Christian publishing business, most are aware that the challenges and vices of their world are more or less open secrets—especially when the word “business” comes into play with anything that’s supposed to be “Christian.” By and large they all want to fix problems rather than perpetuate them. However, it’s nearly impossible to create any kind of meaningful momentum in a climate where many editors and publicists could be laid off at any moment and publishing companies are always reorganizing and shifting. The last thing I want to do is point fingers or create an us vs. them climate.

From my limited vantage point, there are three major challenges that everyone involved in Christian publishing has to deal with. If you’re new to Christian publishing, you’ll most likely be shocked and overwhelmed by these three challenges at one point or another—so let’s just get the shock over with now. If you’re trying to write Christian books for the long term, I think you’ll have to deal with these challenges sooner than later—that is, if these challenges don’t prevent you from landing a book deal.

Most importantly, I’d like to talk about them and hopefully arrive at some solutions. I have no personal vendettas here… OK, maybe I have a few teeny, tiny grudges… but I’m not out to attack anyone or any company. This is all stuff that tons of people talk about over coffee at Christian conferences and publishing events. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could actually sort some of them out a bit?

What is a Christian book?

The biggest hurdle Christian authors face today is the “Christian book” category itself. What exactly should Christian authors write about if we’re trying to write books about our faith for a “Christian” publisher?

Seriously, just take a look at this little overview of the 2014 Christian bestsellers. We have diet books, relationship books, money-management books, and several crazy town end times prophecy books. I have no bone to pick with anyone who wants to read these books—OK, maybe I’ve shown my cards on the whole end times prophecy thing. But really… I’m just asking, what exactly makes a book “Christian”?

“Christian living” has long been the catchall category for books about prayer, faith, spirituality, and Bible study. There are subsets for church books, theology books, prayer, and fiction. However, the distribution of books into these categories just flat out sucks sometimes. I mean, for the love, people… Heaven Is for Real and Four Blood Moons are listed on Amazon as “theology” books. We may as well list Hippos Go Berserk under Wisdom Literature—you can’t deny the parallels with Ecclesiastes.

Most importantly, quite a few of the best-selling Christian authors getting the biggest advances at the largest publishers aren’t necessarily even writing books with any discernable Christian or faith-based element beyond the fact that they are Christians themselves.

I’m not here to judge anyone. We may need self help/healthy living books at times, and it doesn’t hurt to read a book about living a better life, organizing your junk, or whatever. I understand that these books have a broad appeal, sell well, and keep the lights on at publishers. The same goes for the ubiquitous Amish fiction genre.

However, based on some of the books that are acquired and that become bestsellers, Christian publishing is having a bit of an identity crisis. I don’t know about you, but I spend my time trying to figure out the challenges and needs of Christians and then developing book ideas that address them from the perspective of the Christian faith. That at least strikes me as the point of Christian publishing—you know, as opposed to using the Bible to speculate about the end times, sowing fear and confusion, and then cashing in by playing to the fears American culture attempts to medicate through entertainment and sleeping pills.

Publishers may not like me, my writing, or my ideas, but so long as I’m presenting solutions to problems from a Christian perspective, I think I’m at least faithful to the mission of what Christian publishing is all about.

Christian books should resemble the actions and teachings of Christ.

When we see books that are essentially self-help manuals sitting atop the bestseller list alongside Christian bestsellers like 1,000 Gifts or the latest N.T. Wright book (i.e. books that are actually “Christian” in content, mission, etc.), you can’t blame Christian authors for getting a bit confused.

What exactly should we pitch to editors?

What do editors want?

One caveat: if your publisher is super-duper reformed, you just need to find a cool metaphor or analogy for explaining what the Gospel REALLY is. For the rest of us, it’s not just a crapshoot. It’s a huge mess where some big publishing deals are going to authors, who are very nice and good Christian people, who aren’t necessarily writing faith-based books.

I don’t know what the best solution is. I don’t hold any grudges against publishers or authors for this confusing state of affairs. I trust that these are complex, difficult situations. Put most charitably, it’s all quite confusing. Perhaps it would help if some publishers just created an imprint or line of books that are specifically dedicated to “better living” or take more of a self-help angle. We could at least have honest conversations about what a publisher is looking for. Then Christian authors who are writing about specifically Christian topics will have a better idea of their odds of being acquired.

While publishers put together little lists of “topics” they’re currently interested in, I can’t help thinking there’s a “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” element going on even if their list focuses on stuff like prayer or discipleship. I mean, sure they’ll publish a book about prayer if the author has the credentials, platform, and, preferably, thousands of church members to help catapult sales, but if a simple living recipe book about losing weight and saving your marriage while decluttering your home and raising happy kids came along by a Christian author with a huge cooking blog platform, they won’t say no.

Fragmented Authors and Publishers Aren’t Working Together

The majority of authors I know are struggling to find readers for their books, and the majority of their books are really good or at least ideal for a particular niche of readers. We’re all on our own little islands with our various publishers trying to find new readers, asking each other for favors, and dreading a few authors who always ask for a bazillion favors.

I have personally not seen evidence that Christian publishers recognize how authors at different publishers could work together to serve the same market and reach more readers. Publicists are already shoving authors out the door to network and beg for favors. Why can’t publishers join their authors in becoming partners in building these networks among authors in order to strengthen promotions? This could be as simple as sending a few emails back and forth to coordinate a price promotion, book release, or special event.

I don’t mean one of two publicists here and there. Some publicists already get this. You can always find some people who are willing to think outside the box. The problem is that this has yet to become an assumed industry standard. I mean, gosh, some publicists can’t be talked into running eBook promotions yet, let alone partnering with other publishers to help an eBook promotion reach a wider audience!

When I’ve attempted to set up book promotions with the authors I know, the promotions didn’t happen because we couldn’t get certain publicists to respond to our emails in a timely fashion. I think we had a few really great opportunities to network together, and some publicists I spoke to really loved this idea. However, we didn’t get the critical mass to pull it off because some emails weren’t returned.

This kind of thing is maddening to authors. We’ve gone to publishing conferences where publishing experts lecture us on authors taking the initiative, doing their own marketing, and moving away from the days of “just writing books.” Seriously, if you work at a publisher, you need to know this: authors are lectured over and over again about not being lazy and being proactive and doing our marketing. OK? We hear this all of the time. So we try working together to promote our work, and it doesn’t happen because someone at a publisher can’t answer an email.

Every author I know sees the need to work with fellow authors, and some have a long history of doing so. It’s time for publishers to start doing the same or to at least take a more active role in helping us do what they’re telling us to do. If you have a group of authors with intersecting books who write for different publishers, there’s no reason why they can’t work together to organize a group promotion for the same week. A few emails and two months of lead time is all you need to set this up. This is low hanging fruit, folks.

Authors are always being challenged to stop viewing each other as the competition. Most of us are willing to work together to help each other succeed. If our publishers joined us in this as partners with the same vision of cooperation, we would all have a lot to gain.

No One Can Agree on Book Marketing

Based on the conversations I’ve had with authors and publicists at a variety of publishers, there really isn’t a strong consensus on how to market a book. There are, however, a lot of strong opinions. These opinions are so strong, in fact, that some hopeful authors have opted to not pursue book publishing because they don’t want to blog or be a public speaker or deal with the insanity that is Twitter.

#NotAllAuthorsLikeTwitter

However, in each case these authors have merely run into people who have strong opinions about Twitter or public speaking or blogging. There are other professionals with equally strong credentials and comparable experience who think Twitter is ineffective for selling books and public speaking does jack squat for selling books. Some publishers rely on ads and radio interviews, others rely on eBook promotions and reviews, and still others look to blogs, email lists, and social media strategies.

How crazy is this? One publisher rejected a proposal because I didn’t have 10,000 Twitter followers, while another said my platform was strong based on my email list since Twitter didn’t matter. Another friend was told she had to make a YouTube video advertising her book, while another was told his deal hinged on public speaking engagements.

I don’t hold anything against publishers and publicists for this range of opinion. I suspect that particular marketing tactics work based on the author, the book, and the audience. There isn’t a single “correct” way to release a book. In fact, we run into problems when publicists get hooked to particular promotion strategies that simply don’t work for a specific author or a particular book.

The best conversation I’ve ever had with a publicist involved her telling me all of the strategies that wouldn’t work for my book. It was extremely helpful and refreshing.

If you’re getting into Christian publishing, here’s the best thing I can tell you about marketing: you need a plan, but you don’t have to copy every bestselling author. If you hate blogging, try podcasting. I have a friend who told me that her podcast did a lot more to sell her books, even if conventional wisdom says that podcasts don’t sell books.

If you like writing letters, I have good news for you. It’s fun to send regular email newsletters! You just need to figure out how to get people to subscribe so that you have a strong list for your book’s release.

If you have deep, pithy thoughts you enjoy sharing throughout the day, then you’ll probably crush it on Twitter.

If you like starting engaging conversations, then Facebook is certainly for you.

My biggest mistake as an author was trying to imitate authors who are very different people and who write very different books from my own. I would have been far better served to be honest about what I like to do and what I hate to do and then imitating authors based on that.

There’s always a place in book marketing for holding your nose and diving into promotion tactics that you find draining or annoying. There are certain activities that will pay off, even if you don’t like them.

However, there are too many authors who go into marketing conference calls without a clear sense of the most effective ways they as authors can help promote their specific books. Either out of ignorance or an aversion to marketing, they just defer to publicists, some of whom may have strong opinions about marketing that don’t necessarily line up with an author’s talents or the book’s message.

While authors shouldn’t resist every suggestion from a publicist, I’ve talked to enough publicists to appreciate the range of opinions out there. If you want people to read your book and you don’t want to be curled up in the fetal position during release week, take some time to review your options for book publicity and then sort out which ones appeal to you. By the time you sit down to discuss marketing plans, come prepared to listen, but also make a list of ideas and suggestions that best reflect ways you want to promote your book.

Is Christian Publishing in Crisis?

Answering that question definitively is way above my head. However, there’s no denying that Christian writers hoping to publish with one of the top 15-20 Christian publishers will face these challenges related to the identity of a Christian book, working with authors at different publishers, and marketing their books.

In the midst of this turmoil, we’ll most likely see more small publishers and vanity publishers reaching out to ambitious authors who may not quite know what they’re getting into. Middlemen are also rising up, some with more credentials than others, promising classes and coaching on how to get published. As more bloggers and authors see the ease of publishing with Scrivener and Kindle Direct, they’ll begin migrating toward Indie publishing since their profit margins will be higher per sale and there are many top notch tools that make it easy to publish on your own these days.

It’s wonderful and terrible. The opportunities are breathtaking, but for every chance to leap forward, there are twice as many ways things can fall apart.

Every author I know has shared his/her shock at the pain of the publishing experience. There certainly are positive experiences too—or else no one would even bother trying!

I could be completely wrong about all three points here. It would be nice if I was, in fact. However, it’s much easier to take a punch if you’re ready for it. It can be significantly harder to stand up and prepare for the next punch if you aren’t expecting the first. If you want to get into Christian publishing, I guarantee that the punches are coming. Brace yourselves… Christian publishing is changing.

I get emails every week asking me to review, promote, or endorse someone’s book, and it’s an honor to know that someone thinks I’d be able to help them spread the word about their work. It’s also becoming extremely unsustainable for myself and most other bloggers I know to help everyone who asks. I wanted to offer some alternative ideas for authors and publicists in the thick of book promotion and some best practices for working with bloggers:

A Bit of Perspective on Blogging about Books

I’ve been blogging since 2005, and I remember how awesome it used to be when a publisher sent me books for free every once in a while. Sometimes I didn’t care for the books, but the lure of something new was still pretty exciting. However, more publishers and authors started to catch on, and now it’s just been a tidal wave of PDF’s from publicists and authors every month.

Based on the conversations I’ve had with fellow bloggers, most of us now dread getting asked to review books on our blogs. Most bloggers I know dread the drop in traffic from book review posts that eat up hours of time. One friend considered adding a page titled, “Will I Review Your Book?” and the body font had a single word: “NO.” So free books have gone from exciting perks for bloggers to a major time drain now that we receive so many. If you’re promoting a book, you need to keep this in mind: A FREE BOOK IS NO LONGER A TREAT.

Just to put this shift in perspective, if I read, reviewed, endorsed, or blogged about every book I’ve received, I’d never read a book of my own choosing or have time to write about my own ideas. It’s really gotten to that point—especially since I’m a slow reader. Some of the more popular bloggers would never sleep if they read every book offered to them.

Many new authors and publicists will say, “But this book is unique…” or something like that. I get it, but the problem is that to most bloggers, especially the ones with big platforms, every email about a book sounds EXACTLY LIKE THAT. It may be true for your book, but in the split second that a blogger reads your email, the most likely response is, “Not another one…”

I’m an author myself, so I can see both sides of this issue. The good news is that bloggers and fellow authors may be able to help you at times. You just need to rethink your approach.

Make Your Ask Natural

Bloggers can recognize someone who is just trying to make a connection for personal advancement. In fact, when I talk to bloggers with huge platforms, it’s something they dread. They want to help, but they also hate to feel used.

On the other hand, authors and publicists trying to promote books often feel desperate.

When people ask me for ideas on growing their online platforms, I suggest that they try to follow and dialogue with at least 50 people with whom they share common interests. They could have large or small followings. As long as you actually care about that person’s perspective, you’ll be able to have real interactions with them that will benefit both of you.

Your first email or tweet at a blogger should not be a request to review, blog about, or promote your book!!!! This is the kind of thing that bloggers roll their eyes over, but so many new authors and even, unthinkably, publicists make this mistake.

It’s also a major, major mistake to do the following: send a form letter, start off “Dear Blogger,” or fail to mention anything specific about the blogger’s site. I hit delete immediately when a publicity email starts like that.

When it’s time to make an ask, consider what would be appropriate based on your relationship with the blogger in question. Your request should never feel out of the blue. If you think this blogger’s platform is important, why haven’t you been interacting with that blogger on social media and in his/her comments? If you haven’t had the time to do that, why are you asking that blogger to spend hours reading your book and reviewing it?

When it comes to making an ask of bloggers I know, I often ask friends if I can write a guest post that speaks directly to their audience—but that’s something I only ask of friends I know fairly well. You can also offer to do a book giveaway or simple interview (around 5-8 questions). I’m also quick to offer my blog and social media platform to help them with their own projects with the caveat that their book needs to fit my audience. That also keeps me focused on networking bloggers who share the same readers and goals. I never ask bloggers to review my books, and I always offer a few options, such as, “If a guest post doesn’t work, could you mention my eBook sale next week?”

Give people a few options to help you based on their capacity, and give them simple ways to help if your bigger ask isn’t possible or desirable. Most importantly, keep the email short and to the point with a quick pitch about the book, a few ways to help, and a thank you paired with an easy out like, “I understand if you aren’t able to help at this time.” If they can’t help, don’t respond with reasons why they SHOULD have helped—I’m serious, people have actually done that!

Where to Find Reviews for Book Marketing

Unless a blogger specifically blogs about books, I wouldn’t ask for a blog review. Ask for guest posts or organize synchroblogs in order to get noticed on blogs. Here’s an example of a synchroblog and how I wrapped it up. Besides, you need reviews on sites like Amazon and Goodreads.

I would look to your friends on Facebook and Twitter for help with reviews. Are there a few people who always favorite your tweets or like your posts, especially related to your books? Ask them to review your book. Don’t chase the people with the biggest blogs for your reviews. You want to find the people who care the most about your writing to review your books.

While I know that some publishers are a bit hesitant to do this, my perspective as both an author and a blogger is that anyone willing to review a book should get it in any format they desire. I strongly prefer ePub files, but I’ve had so many big name publishers send me the crappiest PDF files that have chaotic paragraph breaks, repeated content, and disjointed headers that ruin the reading experience. I know they’re concerned about piracy, but this paranoia about piracy punishes the wrong people. The vast majority of bloggers and book reviews barely know how to load an eBook onto an eReader, let alone how to download a file to a piracy site.

So be prepared to offer print, ePub, Mobi, or PDF to your reviewers. Thank them profusely and remember that you’re lucky if two thirds of your reviewers follow through. That’s just how it goes.

You can also give books away through Goodreads and Library Thing. Both are reputable book discovery services that have excellent review programs.

The other option for picking up reviews is to set up a free promotion for your book. You can run a free eBook promotion through a few venues:

Give the files away from your site. If you’re an indie author, create the files from scratch using Scrivener or convert your Word file with Calibre. A tool like DropBox has a public file option that you can link to for file downloads.

Price Pulsing to Promote Your Book

I’ve been told by so many people in publishing that I needed thousands of Twitter followers. However, the problem with Twitter is that it’s hard to get a lot of traction for your book without something that catches people’s attention. You need to tweet something other than: “Buy my book for $15!”

Many authors and publishers are experimenting with price pulsing to gather attention for their books and even switching their topic listings on Amazon in order to reach new readers with each new price promotion. They may drop the price to $.99 or $2.99 for five days and then raise it to something like $6.99 or $9.99 once the book has gotten noticed on some of the lists in Amazon. Price promotions are a simple way to get noticed on social media and to get your book more publicity in Amazon’s internal recommendation system and bestseller lists.

While you’re at it, make a list of eBook discount sites who may tweet or share your deal on Facebook. I would list a few here, but they tend to vary depending on your audience and topic. They typically tweet or share on Facebook new promotions each week. If you want to keep up on the competition in your market, you should already be subscribed to these services any way so that you can get similar books on the cheap.

You can also pay a service like BookBub to promote your discounted eBook to their email list—a strategy that many indie authors swear by if you have a book in the right genre. There are similar sites that cost a little less and operate with an ad-based model.

Work on Your Long Game for Book Marketing

The long game of publishing revolves around building an email list that you can control, and while it may be too late to build an email list for this current book project, you should start building your email list before you start your next book. In fact, you could use this current book as a means of building your email list, offering it as a free PDF if website visitors become email subscribers.

There are lots of email tools out there, but I personally use and recommend MailChimp. It’s a simple drag and drop email tool that allows you to create simple, minimalist email campaigns. A few friends have also enjoyed the related service called Tiny Letter, which is a stripped down version of MailChimp.

If you dive into the email marketing long game for book publishing, you should check out a service like NoiseTrade Books where you can let readers pay what they want and collect their email addresses when they download your books.

Read Reliable Books on Marketing

There are a lot of books on marketing that tell half truths, base recommendations on limited data, encourage shady practices, or just repeat what experts have said elsewhere. In addition, marketing veterans in the publishing industry are DEEPLY DIVIDED on how to market books. Having worked with several different publishers, I’ve seen a wide variety of perspectives. I have a few go-to books right now for book marketing that will be worth your time:

The first book is based on experience with commercial publishing, and the other two are based on self-publishing, but all are worth your time since I think most authors who want to make it for the long term need to do both. All three links are affiliate links with Amazon if you want to help pay for a few drops of my daily coffee. If you need more advice on book marketing, these books will point you to additional websites, podcasts, articles, and books that will give you additional perspectives.

I also wrote a big picture guide to book publishing that offers my lessons from nonfiction experiences from start to finish, including a chapter packed with lessons learned after marketing a bunch of books and working with fellow authors on their marketing campaigns: A Path to Publishing: What I Learned by Publishing a Nonfiction Book. You can pay what you want at NoiseTrade Books or buy it for a few bucks through Amazon.

What Other Bloggers Have to Say

I mentioned on Facebook that I was working on a post discussing how to approach bloggers when promoting a book and quite a few weighed in with really helpful advice I hadn’t thought to mention in this post. I will add that they all have large followings and receive lots of book review requests, so take their advice seriously!

Alise D Chaffins: I always appreciate when someone comes to me with a page like you had that has graphics, quotes, links. It makes promotion way easier if I don’t really have to do much or scour your site for info.

Sarah Raymond Cunningham: “If you are writing someone whom you have never met, never send them a form letter. Always use their name, bother to learn something about them and their blog, and customize your request to offer them value.”

Megan Tietz: “The more you provide to make it easy for me, the more likely I am to say yes!”

Preston Yancey: “Along the exact lines of what Alise already said, make it as easy as possible for me to support you. Considering most days I barely have the focus to get my own posts out into the world, it’s a huge help when I have some ready-made things to do/share/send people to. I read every book I say I will read, but I can’t always get a review turned around fast enough, let alone find the brainspace to write it. Something I can easily share on Twitter or Instagram? Done. So done. I’ll do that in a heartbeat.

All that said? If I don’t know you at all, then all of that will be a harder sell for me. Make it clear in your request (along what Sarah said) how our interests or values intersect and why you’re reaching out. I’m 80% likely to read the book of someone I know, even marginally … and about 20% likely someone I don’t. So if you’re pitching me, make it clear that it has to do with the larger kingdom work and not just my followers. They’re kind enough to trust that I put in front of them what I really value … I’m not hawking something I don’t believe in.”

Rachel Held Evans: “Make sure it’s a good fit for their audience. I’ve been inundated with requests lately and the only way I know to narrow it down is to only endorse, review or mention those books I KNOW my readers will be interested in. Rather than seeing it as me being mean to fellow authors, I see it as me protecting and valuing my readers. They’re the “boss.” ”

Tsh Oxenreider: “Also, in addition to that landing page with all the stuff, I find it helpful to narrow down specifically in the email what you’d like someone to do. So, have a page with all the everything someone needs, but in your email, ask specifically if they can do an Instagram, or a tweet, or a blog post. Be open to anything they have time for, yes, but if you give too many options, it feels overwhelming and I end up doing nothing.”

Kurt Willems: “My policy is that if a book is something I’m interested in, but I can’t read and either A) Write and endorsement for the back or B) Write a review on the blog, I usually offer to give away my platform though either an interview or guest post about a theme in the book. It would be nice if meeting authors had the interview/guest post/excerpt in mind (in a way that requires nearly no effort by the blogger <me>) so to expedite the process, etc. I see my blog as a gift, one, that if I believe in something, I’m happy to share.”

Let’s Spread the Word

Can I help market your book on my blog? Probably not. Even if I did read and review it, my post would, at best, result in a few sales. That’s just the reality of these things as I’ve tracked my own sales through several marketing campaigns. I’ve seen much better results from everything I’ve outlined above with the caveat that a targeted guest post for a blogger in my field paired with a price promotion can really help.

I wish I could help all of the authors who reach out to me in more tangible ways, but perhaps the best thing I can do is to keep sharing what I’ve learned so that folks don’t repeat my mistakes.

In the spirit of helping as many authors and bloggers as possible, I’m also offering the content in this post (and this post only!) to anyone else who wants to post it on their blogs. I only ask for a clear attribution and link back to this original post. Here are two ways you could do this:

Option 1

Copy the post word for word and lead off with a note that says something like this: “I am unable to review the majority of books authors send, but I have found Ed Cyzewski’s book marketing advice helpful as an alternative. Here’s a post from his blog that will help:” Then include a link back to this post somewhere in your opening note.

Option 2

Rewrite the content in this post with your own experiences and opinions, but keep the ideas, links, and structure. You could begin with a note that says something like, “I have adapted a post by Ed Cyzewski about book marketing…” Then include a link back to this post.

Thanks for reading. I hope this post will help you take some positive steps forward in promoting your book.

Where You Can Find Me…

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I’m a work from home dad who writes books, freelances for cash or hockey tickets, gardens with reckless abandon, and laments the pizza options in his town that is north of Nashville. This blog represents where writing, contemplative prayer, and bad puns intersect.